• It is possible to build a Reinforced Earth wall on poor bearing capacity foundation soils by reducing its weight.
• Despite the fact that Reinforced Earth walls are gravity structures where their self-weight is designed to resist the driving lateral forces resulted from earth pressure and surcharges, and considering that heavier structures mean greater capacity to resist horizontal loads, lightweight materials have been used as backfill in Reinforced Earth walls with excellent results.
• Making the reinforced volume mass lighter in weight and thus reducing the bearing pressure applied to the foundation, requires a very careful and detailed design to guarantee the stability of the structure. That includes additional sliding check during the design process.
• Knowing the unit weight of the available backfill materials, it is possible to choose alternate layers of backfill and lightweight fill to gain the desired unit weight that meet the bearing capacity of the foundation.
• RECO has used extra lightweight backfill (less than 5kN/m3) in North America for more than 30+ years.
